Makes sense really. He is defending the same amount of points in both Montreal and Cincy so no benefit from withdrawing from one over the other. Might as well get a rest and play Cincy and Winston-Salem where he will have a decent shot of winning the tournament and picking up 250 points. The only other option for him to gain points heading into the Open would be to withdraw from Winston-Salem and make it further than the quarters in one of the Masters tournies.

Former Top-10 player Mardy Fish, who played just his eighth match of the season in Cincinnati, says he is unclear as to what his plans are after the U.S. Open. The 31-year-old, who lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber in the first round, has been struggling with heart-related anxiety issues since March 2012.

“I think there’s going to be some sort of assessment period, maybe after the U.S. Open, where I’ll kind of see how far -- feel how far away I am to where I want to be,” he told reporters in Cincinnati. “With all these problems that I had health-wise, I left the game in the Top 10 in the world, and that’s pretty hard to deal with. It was very, very hard to get there and to stay there for a while, and to make the World Tour Finals and to do all those cool things. So it’s been very hard and very challenging to know that I had really no control over it. And sort of here we sit 12 months out, 12 months away from playing really good tennis, some of the best tennis of my career, and doing well in most tournaments, and now I sit out in the first round in one of my favorite events, one of my best events, so that will challenge you mentally for sure.”

Fish, whose ranking has fallen to No. 129, said that while he has improved since the 2012 U.S. Open, when he pulled out prior to his fourth-round match against Roger Federer, that he still has a long way to go.

“It’s gotten miles and miles better than it was 12 months ago,” he said. “I’ll never forget it. I just can’t wait to sort of just forget, and five years down the road, whatever I’m doing at the time, I can’t even remember that. It’s never going to happen. I can’t ever forget what I went through.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- American Mardy Fish has retired because of heat stroke during the third set of the Winston-Salem Open with Jarkko Nieminen leading 7-5, 6-7 (3), 3-2 on Tuesday.

Fish says in a statement he developed "heat stroke" and the "very hot and humid" weather made it difficult to continue the match.

Slovakia's Martin Klizan was upset 6-4, 6-1 by Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut in the second round. Eighth-seeded Juan Monaco of Argentina defeated France's Nicolas Mahut 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-4 in the final hard-court tune-up before the U.S. Open.

Eleven seeded players had second-round matches Tuesday. Top seed Tomas Berdych and two-time defending champion John Isner withdrew Monday with injuries, and two other seeded players were upset that night.

The official reason given was heat stroke. I've heard a zillion times on broadcasts that Mardy likes the hot, humid weather as he played a lot in Flroida when he was living with the Roddicks. Maybe he just doesn't have it anymore. I hate saying that.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former top-10 player Mardy Fish pulled out of the U.S. Open on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Tennis Association, the latest setback in his bid to make a comeback on tour after dealing with heart issues.

The USTA said the 31-year-old American cited "personal reasons" for his withdrawal. The draw for the year's last Grand Slam tournament is Thursday, and play begins Monday.

Fish has missed months of action at a time over the past two seasons. On Tuesday, Fish stopped playing in the third set of his match against Jarkko Nieminen at a hard-court tournament in Winston-Salem, N.C., because of heat stroke.

Fish has played only eight matches on the ATP World Tour in 2013, going 3-5. He skipped all of the Grand Slam tournaments this season while entering only five other events on the main tour.

He may. He will be 32 in December and he hasn't played well when he has managed to go this year. On the other hand, he has virtually no points to defend next season. Maybe he takes the rest of the season off and comes back fresh next year?

Former top-10 player Mardy Fish, whose career has been in limbo due to a heart condition and its psychological after effects, is dabbling in professional golf.

Fish, 31, played two events in the last three weeks on the All-American Gateway Tour, a developmental circuit for up-and-coming professionals hoping one day to earn their PGA Tour card.

He failed to make the cut at both the ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Ariz., Oct. 29-Nov. 1, and the Whirlwind Golf Club in Chandler, Ariz., Nov. 11-13.

Fish has missed most of the past two tennis seasons while recovering from an accelerated heart beat that first struck him at a Davis Cup match in February 2012.

It resurfaced at the Sony Ericsson Open in March that same year. Doctors induced extreme heart palpitations to try to pinpoint the problem. Fish also underwent a heart procedure known as cardiac catheter ablation to resolve a form of arrhythmia.

Following a number of fits and starts, Fish hasn't played since August, when he retired in the third set of his match against Jarkko Nieminen at a tournament in Winston-Salem, N.C. He pulled out of the U.S. Open the following week citing "personal reasons."

All told, he went 4-5 in five ATP-level events in 2013.

Reached by email, Fish did not deny he was taking a stab at pro golf, which included three-week trip to Florida this fall to train with a PGA pro. But said he did not want to discuss it until he had "a few days to think about things."

His agent, John Tobias, did not return repeated emails and phone calls.

Fish may be looking to follow in the footsteps of Scott Draper.

Draper, an Australian once ranked in the top 50, attempted to transition to pro golf after retiring from tennis. In 2007, he won the New South Wales PGA Championship on the PGA Tour of Australasia.

Fish, a Minnesota native who lives in Los Angeles, has talked superficially about the "demons" that have dogged him despite assurances from doctors that he is fit to compete.

"It took me months and months to get back to normalcy – to have a glass of wine at dinner, to go out to a movie with my wife," Fish told reporters last March at a charity exhibition in Los Angeles shortly before returning to competition after a six-month absence. "Just those normal things that you take for granted I wasn't able to do for a long time."

It's unclear when, or if, Fish will pick up his tennis career.

Now ranked No. 369, he could return to the men's tour using a protected ranking of No. 25, which would allow him to enter up to nine high-level events, according to the ATP. The protected ranking expires on March 31, 2014.

At the few tournaments he played this year, Fish called his situation "day to day" and said that his problems were both mental and physical.

The 6-2 power player hasn't competed at Grand Slam tournament since pulling out of his fourth-round match at the 2012 U.S. Open against Roger Federer just hours before he was scheduled to play.

Doug Henderson, a spokesman for the Arizona-based All-American Gateway Tour, said the low-level tour caters to players aged 25-35 looking to break into professional golf.

Anyone can enter but it's recommended they have at least a plus-3 handicap "to be competitive," Henderson said.

Players who perform well can earn an exemption to the Web.com tour, a direct feeder to the PGA Tour.

"He didn't do terribly," Henderson said of Fish, who shot 78-75 in both events, missing the cut by 13 and 12 strokes. "But he didn't quite make the cut."

Fish owns six career titles and reached a ranking-high of No. 7 in August 2011. He has advanced to three major quarterfinals at the U.S. Open, Wimbledon and Australian Open and won the silver medal at the 2004 Olympics.